SATYA NARAIN KAPOOR Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These cases will be discussed individually. But. they raise an important question of a long forgotten phenomenon of control by Government on an estate known by the expression nazul. Settlements record nazul as an estate, land and property, but there is less modern law available to explain what is the concept of nazul estates. Whatever material is available is virtually lying in the archives of administration and out of use. The administration has forgotten to take guidance from prescribed administrative instructions on how to deal with nazul an estate held by the Government, in public trust not as a private preserve. These cases are not about private rights, but public law of public property and the trust in Government to hold it, be it a small nazul shop in a municipal market, a commercial complex or residential. The principles which govern nazul estates are the same.

(2.) These three writ petitions are in the matter relating to shops, all of them small shops, in the Chowk area of the city (south) of Allahabad behind the famous Clock Tower. These shops, referred to by the petitioners or the respondents, are in a demarcated area where existed a municipal market and the hackney carriage stand ; the two adjoining each other. The allotment, lease and the subsequent control of letting, rent and eviction is controlled by a set of rules, known as the Rules for the Grant of Leases of Subzimandi Shops in the Allahabad District (Nazul shops). [Government Order No. 2547/XI, dated 16th July, 1940, as amended by Government Order No. 789-A/X1-77-78, dated 17th February, 1942]. These rules were framed in 1940, and will hereinafter be referred to as the Nazul Shop Rules.

(3.) All such shops within the district of Allahabad are governed by these rules. Thus, any interpretation of the situation will affect a large number of shops, within the district of Allahabad and wherever similar rules operate in other districts of the State. Further, an understanding of what is 'nazul' is basic before the issues are decided. Suffice it to say that there is no issue between the petitioners or the State respondents that whoever may occupy, all these shops are small shops in use by petty shop keepers of modest means. The shops are on nazul land and the property, the shops and the land are nazul in character ; the rules describe it so.